Program III
Planetary Futures
Energy · climate · infrastructure · biosphere · space
Overview
Stewardship across generations.
How institutions steward the systems on which long-term human flourishing depends, across climate, energy, infrastructure, the biosphere, and space. We examine decisions whose consequences compound across decades and generations, and whether today's institutions are preserving or foreclosing future possibilities.
The pillar covers energy systems and the grid strain of accelerating computational demand, climate adaptation and corporate climate accounting, orbital infrastructure and space governance, and the long-horizon question underneath all of them: what civilizational resilience requires, and which present-day choices quietly spend the optionality that future decision-makers will need.
Research approach
Most institutional risk frameworks assume a stable world. The 2030s will not be stable. Compounding transitions across technology, climate, governance, and social systems produce risk environments that traditional, point-estimate frameworks cannot model.
Our Planetary Futures work builds scenario architectures and risk frameworks for non-stationary environments. This is not climate forecasting or conventional geopolitical risk analysis. It is the question of how institutions organize themselves to navigate uncertainty that compounds rather than resolves.
Image credits
- Planetary Futures
- Landsat 9 image of the Colorado River Delta and Gulf of California, March 30, 2025. Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.